The United States is one of just three countries that 'prefers' imperial measurements over the international metric standard. The motivation why has less to do with official policy than you might think.
The United States is one of just three countries that"prefers" imperial measurements over the international metric standard. The motivation why has less to do with official policy than you might think.
So why don’t Americans use it? Here’s how the metric system evolved—and why it’s still struggling to gain a foothold in daily life., program leader of the federal metric program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the federal agency in charge of standard weights and measures. Tasked with determining a new system, the French Academy of Sciences decided that the measurement underpinning it should consist of the length of one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the Equator as measured from Paris, France. That measure—known as a meter and painstakingly documented by a group of scientific luminaries—became the basis of all metric units of weight and measurement that followed.
Instead, says Benham, both systems are still widely used nationwide. “We’re working in a risky hybrid measurement environment,” she notes. Dual labels are common, and often metric measurements hide in plain sight on rulers, road signs, and tools. This can lead to costly miscalculations and public confusion.
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